February 26, 2025 • 36 mins
Host Jeff Yan continues the thoughtful conversation with Tonya Hendrix, Demitri Kapetanakos, and Dionne Miller from LaGuardia Community College on Digication Scholars Conversations.
The dialogue explores the transformative power of experiential and liberal arts education, highlighting how it bridges classroom learning with real-world applications and community impact.
The guests discuss developing a liberal arts identity, the importance of reflection and self-awareness, and the numerous pathways available to students through a liberal arts education.
Dive into their innovative approaches, hear inspiring student success stories, and discover the extensive value a liberal arts education can offer.
Creating an Integrative Student Liberal Arts Identity: A Reflection on the Process of Building an ePortfolio for a Community College Liberal Arts Program: https://dgmg81phhvh63.cloudfront.net/content/user-photos/IJEP/Article-PDFs/4-IJeP-404.pdf
International Journal of ePortfolio: https://www.aacu.org/ijep
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to DigicationScholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Jeff Yan.
In this episode, you will hear Part Twoof my conversation with Tonya Hendrix,
Demetri Kapetanakos, and Dionne Millerfrom LaGuardia Community College.
More links and information about today'sconversation can be found on Digication's
(00:23):
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Full episodes of Digication ScholarsConversations can be found on
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
Now, I think that LaGuardia, youalso I think that one of the really
cool, smart things, and I don't knowwhether this is part of the calculus,
but I know that there is, you know,at least in the past, uh, some, some
(00:48):
idea of co-ops, you know, for studentsto work, you know, with internships
and so on, it really almost like.
Like immediately prove that, doesn't it?
Um, because you are, you are alsoin the real world and saying, Hey,
actually what I'm doing mattersand there is a place for it, right?
(01:09):
Yeah, we definitely have developedover the last few years, I now focus on
Experiential Learning, even beyond theinternship idea, but helping students
to see how what they're learning inthe classroom can actually impact their
communities and make things better.
And that's really apowerful form of learning.
(01:30):
I think of it as transformational learningwhen students can take this thing that I'm
learning in whichever class and apply tosome issue or problem in my community and
see that knowledge making a difference.
You know, I came from a backgroundwhere in high school, my principal had
(01:50):
a big focus on what she called a roundededucation, which, which now, you know,
I equate to a Liberal Arts education.
And when I went to college, it was, well,we're not educating you for a particular.
Skill or job.
We're educating you to be able to learnso that wherever you find yourself
(02:10):
you have the skills to learn somethingnew something that's applicable to the
situation that you find yourself in andyou know, I think that's what we aim for
at LaGuardia in our Liberal Arts programthat we're giving students the skill to
to learn wherever they find themselves,whatever it is that they're doing and
(02:31):
also to Apply that knowledge to theirtheir communities and see that their
knowledge is not just for them and theirpersonal ambitions, but also can impact
community that they should care about.
It is so, so powerful.
(02:51):
And I actually think that there'sa something, you know, like, um,
what you just said echoes with me sowell, because there is, it's really
different when a student is drivenby something that they can see and
experience and they can believe in.
Because this is my, my communityis my family, is my friends.
(03:14):
These are my, you know, relativesthat when I do these things, it
actually worked for, for them, right?
That to me is an even more direct, youknow, sort of, um, because I think that
some of it is sometimes kind of myth like.
I have, uh, teenagers in my, in myhousehold, and sometimes they would go,
(03:37):
Hey, I knew someone who You know, um,you know, who, you know, I saw someone
that does this job and, and they weregoing to charge a charge us a lot of
money because we have to, you know,fix something or whatever it might be.
And, and, and, and we require theservice and then it go, well, that
would be a really great profession.
That's what they, where they'relearning that from, right?
(03:59):
They are getting that.
But, but they're exposedto so little of it.
That's whatever that came first.
It seems like I couldsee myself doing that.
And immediately theygo like, let's do that.
And I, and I, I think that the, theidea that they, they just didn't
really quite get the exposure.
If, if they were exposed toLeonardo da Vinci, they might
(04:20):
have been painters instead.
I don't know.
Right.
Or they might've been writers instead.
So I, I just think that there'sa little bit of this sort of.
It's slightly myth based right now, um,that, Hey, you know, these skills gets
me a job and a paycheck where thosedon't, I don't think it's actually true
because there are plenty of people.
And in fact, you know, uh, Demetri hadsaid, Hey, you're from the Ivy leagues.
(04:44):
You know, actually these kidsget a lot of jobs and good jobs
and good start paying jobs.
And guess what?
Most of their degrees arelargely Liberal Arts-based.
Um, and so it's a, uh, it's, it's a littlebit, it's sort of like weird that, you
know, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes,you know, I love what you just said, we're
(05:04):
not a workforce development, we want toprovide them with an education, right,
that encompasses Critical thinking, butalso like when I saw your, the template,
can we talk about that a little bit?
You created a template, which wasreally a big part of your paper.
And I don't want to havethis whole conversation.
We're talking about that.
(05:25):
Um, you, you have this templatethat you've created and clearly
you wanted to share it with others.
Um, that had, you know, six, Ithink it was like six or seven big.
Pages, big topics, um, I will sharethe paper so people can really read
the details for those who are reallyinterested, but it would be great
(05:49):
if you all can maybe talk a littlebit about that and what are some
of the, the big ideas from this.
Do you want me to start?
Well, go ahead, Demetri.
Okay.
I think, well, I mean, I think thepage, I mean, the template that we
came up with really comes out with aproject that Dionne sort of, you know,
(06:14):
um, really wanted to sort of builda Liberal Arts identity and think
about how could students be engagedin the Liberal Arts on a meta level.
So, Tonya and I really werethinking about how do we layer.
The levels of reflection and identitybuilding that are needed in order
(06:36):
to sort of come out and say, Yeah, Iknow what the value is of the Liberal
Arts, what we've been talking about.
How do we get the students slowlybut steadily to build to that point
when they're like, Aha, I got it.
And that really is about sort of buildingstep by step and thinking through how does
(06:57):
that fit into a larger curriculum, right?
What are the points in the curriculumthat we want them to be like, stop
and think instead of just saying,okay, I'm just going through this.
And I think, again, this idea ofreflection and identity building
are the two major components of.
This template.
(07:18):
So and I think it's taken students beyond.
This is the Liberal Arts.
This is what I'm learning to.
I am the Liberal Arts.
The Liberal Arts matters to me.
It's integ... It's integral to who I am.
And so we're, you know, we're tryingto transition the students, right?
(07:39):
So we're... They embody their Liberal Artseducation, because I truly feel deep in
my heart that if a student can explainto somebody what the Liberal Arts is.
Right?
You are far ahead and above andbeyond most students who graduate
(07:59):
with Liberal Arts degrees.
And that's part of what we're askingthem to do, starting from the very
first sem very first, uh, semesterin their first year seminar class.
This is what people saythe Liberal Arts is.
What do you think about this?
How is this going to help you?
In college, how can thishelp you beyond right?
(08:20):
Start to really embodywhat is Liberal Arts.
So it is kind of speaking aboutwhat Dionne mentioned earlier, an
experiential learning process, right?
Delving into the Liberal Arts.
How does this matter?
Like Demetri said, in myeveryday life, it's Liberal Arts.
Let me ask you this.
(08:40):
It's liberal.
Should people be looking at Liberal Arts,sort of this thinking, this mindset.
A skill that they can learnand develop and be more
sophisticated over time with it.
I would say absolutely.
I think we have this mindset thatwe were, when we were born, given
(09:04):
this many cards of intelligence.
And it's still, like yousaid earlier, a myth.
We know now that's not true.
Our neural networks canbe retrained and reshaped.
So if that's true, we can continue tolearning, which is why all three of us
have said something about getting theskills to continue learning, right?
(09:29):
Because you can continue to learn.
I think Demetri and Dionne will agreethat the work that we did in order to
get our advanced degrees, or at leastI know for me, does not It doesn't
figure into my everyday life now,
(09:50):
but it did teach me skills that Istill, I have to write emails on a
daily basis, not that I enjoy theprocess at all, but I have to, right?
I have to write emails.
You have to be able tocommunicate with people.
And that's one of the foundationsof a Liberal Arts education
is communicating your ideas.
(10:10):
And as you said earlier, whenwe practice those skills.
We get better at doing them.
I also want to just pop in and add, Ithink, you know, we were, we've been
talking about how jobs have been suchan important part of our identity.
Like when we always asksomeone, it's what you do.
(10:33):
And I feel the Liberal Arts addsanother layer of identity where it
becomes, well, what are your passions?
What are you thinking?
What are you interested in?
And it's just a different way of.
I think identifying yourself andalso walking through the world,
both at the same time, right?
(10:53):
Right.
It's a way to know yourself better.
So I tell my students all the time, it'sokay if you didn't like these particular
chapters in your biology textbook.
You may like other chapters.
Part of knowing.
It's knowing what you don'tknow, and that's not at all
reflected in our society.
(11:16):
No one can know everything, but if youknow what you don't know and you're
able to learn, then you can go get it.
I think that what you are all doinghere is so incredibly important.
One of the things that I. Ifeel very strongly about is that
(11:38):
it feels like to me that reflectionshould be a skill that you can
differentiate from when you werea baby all the way to you are.
I'm, I'm not even, I'm going to skipover PhDs, but I'm talking about life,
you know, all the way to when you, youknow, eventually, you know, disappear
from earth, all of that experience.
(12:01):
You know, it's a skill that you get.
And by the way, it has been the truthfor humanity throughout the history.
That's why, you know, the native Americanshave the elders and Chinese talk about,
you know, like what happens when they, youknow, when, when, uh, you know, how do you
(12:22):
think about, um, you know, people who haveexperience and, and they're enlightened
because they've gotten all the meditationsover time and so on and so forth.
Um, But, but my thinking about it,that to me, that one of the big
observation that I've, I've had for along time, and I've, I'm continuously
(12:42):
puzzled by it is that we pay so muchattention to skill level it, when it
comes to something like let's call.
I'm not using the as an attack,by the way, but I'm using as an
example, let's take math becausenone of you guys here teach math.
So I don't feel like I'm impacting you,um, but it really applied to almost every
(13:07):
domain where we know that, you know.
Like at kindergarten, you are atthis level, being able to have
concepts of counting and whatnot.
At certain level, you're able todo certain kind of arithmetic.
And then at some level you'redoing pre-calculus, calculus, et
cetera, and so on and so forth.
And we, I'm not even criticizing andwhether they are value and whether we
(13:31):
should have them, but my point is seehow sophisticated we've differentiated
each and every level of this.
Yet, when we talk about reflection,which to me is much more important
because it literally is a buildingblock of our neural network, like, um,
Tonya, you had just mentioned, yet weare still relatively sort of soft about
(13:56):
what just reflect you learn to reflect.
Like, I don't have the vocabularyto say now that you are a, you know,
graduate of this or now that you are, youshould be able to do it at this level.
Like your neural network should bethis thick and this wide, or, or
at least have, you know, have been,have been able to process things
(14:17):
that are off the sixth degree, right?
We are not really evenputting enough effort into it.
To really do it aside, aside from aprogram like yours, where you've dedicated
an entire program where people canactually have a degree on in Liberal
Arts, where you are, you know, likereally thinking through like, well,
(14:41):
the curriculum is how to think is theability to develop purpose and need.
And by the way, developing purpose andmeaning to me is what's really beautiful
about what you, you all had talked about,because it's not just about getting that
paycheck either, because, you know, thereare, there's getting a paycheck in a way
that is fulfilling and there's a paycheck.
(15:01):
That's just a paycheck.
Um, you know, um, and, and, and itdoesn't feel right to just get our
students to get a paycheck withoutgiving them that fulfillment.
And I think that's one of thebenefits of a college education.
So you should transition from having ajob to having a career where you have
(15:23):
a vested interest in the processes andthe outcomes other than the paycheck.
And one thing I think that we're kind ofskirting around is the idea of innovation.
So critical thinking is what allowsus to innovate, but it is like you
(15:44):
mentioned before, reflection is notbuilt into any curriculum, right?
And for a lot of us who teach a lot ofus teach the way that we were taught
and we weren't taught to ask a student,'You just learned a lot of chemistry and
you're supposed to be in a biology class.
(16:05):
How do you feel about that?' We'rewe're not We're not taught to do that.
So it requires us to be innovativeourselves in order to train our
students to be innovative, right?
Because that's where innovationcomes from reflection.
And you're right, Jeff.
(16:26):
It's a hugely important skill that weshould just as human beings be able to
better, um, like delineate the stages.
Stage zero reflector, yourstage two reflector, right?
And if you do a X, Y, and Z,you'll can level up, right?
Your reflection abilityis really important.
(16:47):
I mean, maybe it doesn't even haveto be so sequential, you know,
but I think that for us not havingeven the sophistication level to have.
You know, a discussion wherewe can just say, Oh, okay.
You know, I see that you are, youknow, you're able to reflect in
this way, which is very powerful.
(17:08):
And when you combine it with this otherkinds of reflection, this is where
a really confident, you know, likea really cool, like you are, you're
going to be really good at the, the,you know, creative, you know, you,
you'd be a great screenwriter and, and,and, and, and, and, and, uh, you know,
and a playwright, et cetera, right.
Could I just say, um, I think theother thing too, that the Liberal Arts
(17:29):
provides is imagination and possibilityof other ways of looking at the world.
I mean, I just have to sort of bringup a topic that I've just listened to.
Um, a book called 'The Sea People - ThePuzzle of Polynesia.' And one of the
things that blew, my mind is the way,um, these peoples were able to navigate
(17:55):
the sea, not with a single chart, lookingat stars, looking at swells, looking at
birds and, you know, and it's, you know,and they were mentioning this, um, 18th
century priest who sailed with cook namedto Paya and he did a map and they're
like, it doesn't look like any map.
(18:17):
That is actually readable because heused the positionality of a Polynesian
where they were sort of jumping fromisland to island and using sort of
different modalities of thinking,right, in order to be able to navigate.
And I love that as a metaphor forthe Liberal Arts too, right, about
(18:40):
both us as how could we spark thatimagination and what could come up.
As a result of it, right?
I mean, it's just adifferent way of viewing.
It's a different way of seeing the world.
It's a different, it'sa different empathy.
It's a different feeling, youknow, and I just want to, I mean,
again, any opportunity now Ihave to bring up the Polynesians.
(19:02):
I'll take it, but I do think itworks really well as a metaphor here.
I think that's so beautiful.
And by the way, this idea of empathy.
Making meaning, you know,finding passion, et cetera.
It, you know, to me is, you know, it'sone of those, um, one of those things
(19:24):
that humans are privileged to have, youknow, like we, we have a lot of choices.
In life and we get to develop passionabout something and we get to have
that sense of fulfillment by if we canidentify it, we can go for it and it
would be the best feeling one can have.
(19:47):
And it also includes things like, youknow, doing things for your family,
doing things for your loved ones,doing things for your friends, right?
These things don't give you apaycheck necessarily in and of itself,
in most cases, at least, right?
(20:08):
But they are things that we do, and ashumans, we actually, that's a privilege.
That's something that we, we get todo, and it's something that, um, you
know, um, uh, It doesn't matter whetheryou're, you're, it, it, it, it, there's
no, um, uh, stock market for it.
(20:29):
There's no, um, corporate tax on this.
There's no, there's, there,there's no, that you do it for
just a pure joy of doing so.
And I feel like that.
In education, um, it's, it's importantfor us to think about that being like,
(20:51):
that can't not be one of the goals,you know, for our students to, to, to
be there, to be at that, to have thatsort of, to be able to enjoy that.
Um, and I, I do think that it really, tome, I, I, I have, I have so much respect
for, for all the fields, by the way.
So I, I mean, it, it almost soundedlike the, I'm like beating up on,
(21:13):
Hey, if you want to be a nurse.
Don't do that because that's just a skill.
No, actually, I think that people thatdo it is because they have that passion,
you know, but it would be terrible inmy mind for someone that don't have that
passion and then they do it because theyheard it's a good way to get a paycheck.
And then when they do that job.
(21:35):
They do do get that paycheck and, andI'm sure you can train them to the
level where they can do it, but theyare just going to be unfulfilled.
They're doing this where they reallywant, they really want to be as an
athlete or to be a painter or to bea writer or to be something else,
to be a communicator, you know?
Yeah, no.
(21:56):
And I mean, you have people like AbrahamVerghese, who, um, you know, doctor.
And an incredible writer, you know, firstbook about his experience working with
AIDS patients in Tennessee in the 1990s.
And then he writes some incrediblenovels where he could straddle that line
between, you know, science, you know,hardcore science as a very, I mean, well
(22:24):
known and quite sort of renowned doctor.
And at the same time,An incredible writer.
And those are, you know, multipleidentities that our students already have.
And it's a question of, again, how dothey, I think, establish new ones and keep
adding to them and that they don't haveto be defined by discipline, right, right.
(22:48):
So that, you know, There there'smultiple ways of being that you
can be the same body, right?
You know, I usually, you know, sayto students, you can be interested
in science and in art and in history.
It doesn't have to be one or the other.
It's possible to have multiple interests.
You know, you talked aboutLeonardo da Vinci earlier.
(23:10):
to be a painter who's interested inanatomy and physics and engineering,
and it's possible to be that person.
You know, when we, when I conceivedof this project, part of, of what I
was pushing back against is, you know,students come into the college and they
have to pick a major and Liberal Artsbecame the place that you went if you
(23:32):
weren't sure what you wanted to be.
And that was somehow a bad thing.
All right.
So.
People who want to be nurses orengineers or any of the really
well defined programs, fine.
You're not quite sureyet what you want to do.
Okay, go into Liberal Arts andfigure it out, and then you'll
switch into something else.
(23:53):
And we wanted to position theLiberal Arts major as an end in
itself, as a good thing to be.
And we, we, you know, goingback to the template, this idea
of helping students recognize.
The value that Liberal ArtsUm, has in and of itself.
Yes, it gives you all these skills.
(24:14):
But yes, just being a creative,curious person is a great thing
to be and just as great as being anurse or an engineer or or a doctor.
And, um, and also just even to sayto students studying the Liberal
Arts open so many pathways to you.
You can still be creative.
(24:34):
the engineer or the nurse or, or thedoctor having studied Liberal Arts.
But think about how much better youwill be because you, you understand
more about people and cultures.
If you're a healthcare professionalwho understands, you know,
more about different culturalbackgrounds of your patients, just
(24:54):
how much better the standard ofcare you could, you could offer.
So we really wanted to make surethat students realize the value.
Of the Liberal Arts for them, whateverpathway they eventually chose.
I love that, Dionne.
Um, by the way, uh, Demetri, youknow who else also is a fantastic
(25:17):
writer, but also a physician?
It's, um, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Who wrote Sherlock Holmes.
True.
You are still watching movieson Sherlock Holmes today.
And that was written inthe Late 1800s, right?
I think it's late 1800s.
It was written.
And so, so, you know, this is, these are,in other words, these are not new ideas.
(25:42):
We have amazing people in our historythat we can look back in and say, wow,
you know, these things happened, right?
But, but how are we so, um, youknow, how are we, how are we missing
these really important pieces?
And I'm so glad that you You know,beyond your program have taking a,
(26:07):
uh, taking this so seriously andgoing, hold on a minute, you know,
we've got to, we've got to make,make this a possibility for people.
Now I want to maybe, um, um, we'll,we'll wrap up in a minute, but I
wanted to talk a little bit about.
What you see, and this is something that,you know, you might have some anecdotes
(26:30):
or you might have some students asexamples, or just, you know, in general,
your students going through this program,they're creating these portfolios,
they're doing these reflections.
Can you give us some sort of likeexample, some colors on what are
the results like has have there havestudents, you know, gone through this
(26:51):
and going, wow, this changed my life or.
Wow.
And now I do this and that, um, like,can you give us a little bit of that?
So that people like, I think thatthere's still this like illusion
that, well, if you're starting tobecome a mechanic, you can fix it.
Um, okay.
Like we got that.
(27:12):
Um, if you studied.
Liberal Arts.
What are the results?
And I'm talking about both thetangible, like, Hey, maybe, you know,
what jobs or what fields can theygo into, but also like, what else
does it, does it come with that?
We just, that, that correspondto what we've been talking about,
I think for me, um, I said before thatI teach first year seminar and first
(27:37):
year seminar is where we introduce theLiberal Arts Corey portfolio to students.
And for me, yeah.
What I love is students begin tosee themselves as whole individuals.
They begin to understand thatWhen I'm exploring my major, I'm
(28:02):
exploring the world and I'm exploringmyself so that they begin to make
internal and external connections.
So then, you know, the reflectis, of course, prompted by
reflection, but the imagination in.
The innovation I cansee sparked in students.
(28:26):
So, when we talk about things thatstudents don't expect to hear about,
because in my case, they're sciencemajors, it's like a flower opening up.
It's a really beautiful process.
You feeling okay, Tonya?
Feel free to take your time.
You choked up there, really, thinkingabout your students, I think.
(28:50):
For those who are listening, Tonya, Ithink, choked on a little bit of water,
so she'll be back with us in a minute.
But I could see how it's getting.
You know, I can also, yeah, youknow, I think about the student
last year who was the representativefor our graduating class.
And.
(29:11):
That was one of those experiences asan educator where you really say, Yes,
this is this is what we're striving for.
She was a student who graduatedfrom our Liberal Arts, social
science and humanities major,and she was transferring.
to become a biology major.
(29:31):
And I was just like, wow, thisis exactly what I want to happen.
I want a student to realize thatno pathway is closed off to them
because they chose the Liberal Arts.
And so she was going from a nonSTEM major into a STEM major.
And she talked about, she wasinterviewed by, um, the university,
(29:55):
um, student life office.
And she talked about, how valuableshe found the Liberal Arts program at
LaGuardia in exposing her to differentideas across different disciplines.
And I said, Yes, thisis my perfect graduate.
This is what I hope to accomplishthat here we have a student who
(30:15):
could without any prompting from us.
I had no idea she was doing thisinterview until I saw it published that
she could talk so fluently about howexposure to multiple ideas in multiple
courses across the Liberal Arts majorwas really valuable to her development.
And she could then transition from thismajor into being a biologist because
(30:39):
having experienced all the different,um, disciplines that we introduced her
to, she could settle on, okay, yes, thisis the one that inspires my passions
and makes me want to, to learn more.
And I hope she never loses that inwhatever it is that she eventually,
you know, lands on in her career.
(31:02):
Um, I could also tell the story, becauseI was trying to think, because I have
not taught, um, well, upper level, 200level courses in a while, LaGuardia.
But I actually had, um, a scenario thispast, um, summer where I had a student
who was finishing her associate's degree.
At, um, at LaGuardia indeaf, in, um, deaf studies.
(31:26):
It's a Liberal Arts concentration, right?
So it's a Liberal Arts degree.
And, you know, she's like, you know,I need to finish, I'm going to, you
know, finish the degree to Oklahoma.
So she took it as an opportunity to, youknow, come here and we started talking.
And like I said to her, well, what are yougoing to do when you go back to Oklahoma?
(31:46):
She's like, well, Iwant to be a translator.
I'm like, yeah, is that it?
You know, she was telling me the storyhow every Sunday she was going to a, um,
uh, a church with, um, deaf congregants.
And I was like, let me tell you, girl, ifyou were going to write a master's thesis,
(32:07):
A sociological thesis on religion and thedeaf community, I would read it, right?
And she's like, I'dnever thought about that.
I mean, you know, it opens uppossibilities instead of saying, okay,
I'm going to be a deaf translator.
Well, how could you engage withthe world and understand it in
ways that you never thought?
possible.
(32:27):
And that's just one small example,but I mean, you know, she wrote me a
lovely letter saying, Oh, thank you somuch that, you know, class that she was
literally taking in her last semester,all of a sudden opened her eyes.
Like, I wish I knew thisat the very beginning.
And yet I hope again, there was thatlittle sort of, as we say, imagination
and possibility that the LiberalArts provides in that one student.
(32:55):
That is so lovely.
Um, Well, I, I feel like that's, first ofall, let's try to invite some of these.
Students and graduates so that we canhave more conversations with them as well.
So we're gonna, we're gonna,we're gonna talk to them too.
And we're gonna, you know, sothe people can, can see from your
(33:16):
perspective, how you think about it,but also from their perspective, right?
Um, I think that would be a great,um, some great follow up conversations
that we should, we must have.
Uh, but I also want to justsay how grateful I am that you
three are here to share these.
Different perspectives and how gratefulagain and thankful that I am to have
(33:40):
the opportunity to work with you alland seeing what you're able to, to
accomplish, uh, with your students.
These are like really very seriouslyinspiring highlights and, and I, um, I
am, uh, I am just so, um, amazed by thecontinuous drive to continue to do that.
(34:03):
And I think it's because yourinstitution has that Liberal Arts,
um, foundation as driven by that.
I think you had mentioned earlierfrom Gail Mello, who my met years ago.
And she's amazing.
She has created thisamazing culture there.
And, and you all think in this way.
(34:23):
Um, and I, I just, I just love that,um, for folks who don't know, um enough
about LaGuardia Community College,please Google them, check them out.
Um, they, this is what a wonderfulinstitution, um, and for folks who,
um, who, um, are not, who, who maynot have been exposed to what Liberal
(34:48):
Arts education can do for you.
Um, check out that paper, you will see,you know, I think you'll be inspired
just like I did, even though it's a,it's really written as an academic paper.
I think I thought it was, um, youknow, suitable for anyone to read.
Um, uh, you may not, you know, needto read every little piece of it.
(35:09):
It's a long paper, but there will beenough that you'll get a lot out of it.
Um, and, and this stuff that, you know,Dionne and Tonya, and Demetri are sharing.
They're not just, you know, thingsthat are, you know, just nice
to have, and they just happento do it for fun, for no reason.
You know, this is backed by lots ofresearch, lots of efforts, and huge
(35:33):
amount of commitment by dedicatedpeople who have found their meanings.
The life and have, have dedicatedthat purpose to building these so that
other people can enjoy it as well.
And so I hope that you all go in andcheck this out and congratulations
again for all your successes.
I, and I hope that we get to talkagain soon and we'll get some of
your students and graduate to come onthis and then we'll have you guys to
(35:56):
come on this afterwards as well, andthen, and then see how they all go.
Okay.
We'll, we'll keep, keep in touch.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having us.
Here's a preview of what's coming up nextin part two of my conversation with Tonya
Hendrix, Demetri  Kapetanakos, and DionneMiller from LaGuardia Community College.
(36:17):
So being able to question and reallychoose what is valuable and what
matters is something that Bucknell hasreally, has allowed me to practice.
Welcome to DigicationScholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Jeff Yan.
In this episode, you will hear Part Twoof my conversation with Tonya Hendrix,
Demetri Kapetanakos, and Dionne Millerfrom LaGuardia Community College.
More links and information about today'sconversation can be found on Digication's
(00:23):
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Full episodes of Digication ScholarsConversations can be found on
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
Now, I think that LaGuardia, youalso I think that one of the really
cool, smart things, and I don't knowwhether this is part of the calculus,
but I know that there is, you know,at least in the past, uh, some, some
(00:48):
idea of co-ops, you know, for studentsto work, you know, with internships
and so on, it really almost like.
Like immediately prove that, doesn't it?
Um, because you are, you are alsoin the real world and saying, Hey,
actually what I'm doing mattersand there is a place for it, right?
(01:09):
Yeah, we definitely have developedover the last few years, I now focus on
Experiential Learning, even beyond theinternship idea, but helping students
to see how what they're learning inthe classroom can actually impact their
communities and make things better.
And that's really apowerful form of learning.
(01:30):
I think of it as transformational learningwhen students can take this thing that I'm
learning in whichever class and apply tosome issue or problem in my community and
see that knowledge making a difference.
You know, I came from a backgroundwhere in high school, my principal had
(01:50):
a big focus on what she called a roundededucation, which, which now, you know,
I equate to a Liberal Arts education.
And when I went to college, it was, well,we're not educating you for a particular.
Skill or job.
We're educating you to be able to learnso that wherever you find yourself
(02:10):
you have the skills to learn somethingnew something that's applicable to the
situation that you find yourself in andyou know, I think that's what we aim for
at LaGuardia in our Liberal Arts programthat we're giving students the skill to
to learn wherever they find themselves,whatever it is that they're doing and
(02:31):
also to Apply that knowledge to theirtheir communities and see that their
knowledge is not just for them and theirpersonal ambitions, but also can impact
community that they should care about.
It is so, so powerful.
(02:51):
And I actually think that there'sa something, you know, like, um,
what you just said echoes with me sowell, because there is, it's really
different when a student is drivenby something that they can see and
experience and they can believe in.
Because this is my, my communityis my family, is my friends.
(03:14):
These are my, you know, relativesthat when I do these things, it
actually worked for, for them, right?
That to me is an even more direct, youknow, sort of, um, because I think that
some of it is sometimes kind of myth like.
I have, uh, teenagers in my, in myhousehold, and sometimes they would go,
(03:37):
Hey, I knew someone who You know, um,you know, who, you know, I saw someone
that does this job and, and they weregoing to charge a charge us a lot of
money because we have to, you know,fix something or whatever it might be.
And, and, and, and we require theservice and then it go, well, that
would be a really great profession.
That's what they, where they'relearning that from, right?
(03:59):
They are getting that.
But, but they're exposedto so little of it.
That's whatever that came first.
It seems like I couldsee myself doing that.
And immediately theygo like, let's do that.
And I, and I, I think that the, theidea that they, they just didn't
really quite get the exposure.
If, if they were exposed toLeonardo da Vinci, they might
(04:20):
have been painters instead.
I don't know.
Right.
Or they might've been writers instead.
So I, I just think that there'sa little bit of this sort of.
It's slightly myth based right now, um,that, Hey, you know, these skills gets
me a job and a paycheck where thosedon't, I don't think it's actually true
because there are plenty of people.
And in fact, you know, uh, Demetri hadsaid, Hey, you're from the Ivy leagues.
(04:44):
You know, actually these kidsget a lot of jobs and good jobs
and good start paying jobs.
And guess what?
Most of their degrees arelargely Liberal Arts-based.
Um, and so it's a, uh, it's, it's a littlebit, it's sort of like weird that, you
know, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes,you know, I love what you just said, we're
(05:04):
not a workforce development, we want toprovide them with an education, right,
that encompasses Critical thinking, butalso like when I saw your, the template,
can we talk about that a little bit?
You created a template, which wasreally a big part of your paper.
And I don't want to havethis whole conversation.
We're talking about that.
(05:25):
Um, you, you have this templatethat you've created and clearly
you wanted to share it with others.
Um, that had, you know, six, Ithink it was like six or seven big.
Pages, big topics, um, I will sharethe paper so people can really read
the details for those who are reallyinterested, but it would be great
(05:49):
if you all can maybe talk a littlebit about that and what are some
of the, the big ideas from this.
Do you want me to start?
Well, go ahead, Demetri.
Okay.
I think, well, I mean, I think thepage, I mean, the template that we
came up with really comes out with aproject that Dionne sort of, you know,
(06:14):
um, really wanted to sort of builda Liberal Arts identity and think
about how could students be engagedin the Liberal Arts on a meta level.
So, Tonya and I really werethinking about how do we layer.
The levels of reflection and identitybuilding that are needed in order
(06:36):
to sort of come out and say, Yeah, Iknow what the value is of the Liberal
Arts, what we've been talking about.
How do we get the students slowlybut steadily to build to that point
when they're like, Aha, I got it.
And that really is about sort of buildingstep by step and thinking through how does
(06:57):
that fit into a larger curriculum, right?
What are the points in the curriculumthat we want them to be like, stop
and think instead of just saying,okay, I'm just going through this.
And I think, again, this idea ofreflection and identity building
are the two major components of.
This template.
(07:18):
So and I think it's taken students beyond.
This is the Liberal Arts.
This is what I'm learning to.
I am the Liberal Arts.
The Liberal Arts matters to me.
It's integ... It's integral to who I am.
And so we're, you know, we're tryingto transition the students, right?
(07:39):
So we're... They embody their Liberal Artseducation, because I truly feel deep in
my heart that if a student can explainto somebody what the Liberal Arts is.
Right?
You are far ahead and above andbeyond most students who graduate
(07:59):
with Liberal Arts degrees.
And that's part of what we're askingthem to do, starting from the very
first sem very first, uh, semesterin their first year seminar class.
This is what people saythe Liberal Arts is.
What do you think about this?
How is this going to help you?
In college, how can thishelp you beyond right?
(08:20):
Start to really embodywhat is Liberal Arts.
So it is kind of speaking aboutwhat Dionne mentioned earlier, an
experiential learning process, right?
Delving into the Liberal Arts.
How does this matter?
Like Demetri said, in myeveryday life, it's Liberal Arts.
Let me ask you this.
(08:40):
It's liberal.
Should people be looking at Liberal Arts,sort of this thinking, this mindset.
A skill that they can learnand develop and be more
sophisticated over time with it.
I would say absolutely.
I think we have this mindset thatwe were, when we were born, given
(09:04):
this many cards of intelligence.
And it's still, like yousaid earlier, a myth.
We know now that's not true.
Our neural networks canbe retrained and reshaped.
So if that's true, we can continue tolearning, which is why all three of us
have said something about getting theskills to continue learning, right?
(09:29):
Because you can continue to learn.
I think Demetri and Dionne will agreethat the work that we did in order to
get our advanced degrees, or at leastI know for me, does not It doesn't
figure into my everyday life now,
(09:50):
but it did teach me skills that Istill, I have to write emails on a
daily basis, not that I enjoy theprocess at all, but I have to, right?
I have to write emails.
You have to be able tocommunicate with people.
And that's one of the foundationsof a Liberal Arts education
is communicating your ideas.
(10:10):
And as you said earlier, whenwe practice those skills.
We get better at doing them.
I also want to just pop in and add, Ithink, you know, we were, we've been
talking about how jobs have been suchan important part of our identity.
Like when we always asksomeone, it's what you do.
(10:33):
And I feel the Liberal Arts addsanother layer of identity where it
becomes, well, what are your passions?
What are you thinking?
What are you interested in?
And it's just a different way of.
I think identifying yourself andalso walking through the world,
both at the same time, right?
(10:53):
Right.
It's a way to know yourself better.
So I tell my students all the time, it'sokay if you didn't like these particular
chapters in your biology textbook.
You may like other chapters.
Part of knowing.
It's knowing what you don'tknow, and that's not at all
reflected in our society.
(11:16):
No one can know everything, but if youknow what you don't know and you're
able to learn, then you can go get it.
I think that what you are all doinghere is so incredibly important.
One of the things that I. Ifeel very strongly about is that
(11:38):
it feels like to me that reflectionshould be a skill that you can
differentiate from when you werea baby all the way to you are.
I'm, I'm not even, I'm going to skipover PhDs, but I'm talking about life,
you know, all the way to when you, youknow, eventually, you know, disappear
from earth, all of that experience.
(12:01):
You know, it's a skill that you get.
And by the way, it has been the truthfor humanity throughout the history.
That's why, you know, the native Americanshave the elders and Chinese talk about,
you know, like what happens when they, youknow, when, when, uh, you know, how do you
(12:22):
think about, um, you know, people who haveexperience and, and they're enlightened
because they've gotten all the meditationsover time and so on and so forth.
Um, But, but my thinking about it,that to me, that one of the big
observation that I've, I've had for along time, and I've, I'm continuously
(12:42):
puzzled by it is that we pay so muchattention to skill level it, when it
comes to something like let's call.
I'm not using the as an attack,by the way, but I'm using as an
example, let's take math becausenone of you guys here teach math.
So I don't feel like I'm impacting you,um, but it really applied to almost every
(13:07):
domain where we know that, you know.
Like at kindergarten, you are atthis level, being able to have
concepts of counting and whatnot.
At certain level, you're able todo certain kind of arithmetic.
And then at some level you'redoing pre-calculus, calculus, et
cetera, and so on and so forth.
And we, I'm not even criticizing andwhether they are value and whether we
(13:31):
should have them, but my point is seehow sophisticated we've differentiated
each and every level of this.
Yet, when we talk about reflection,which to me is much more important
because it literally is a buildingblock of our neural network, like, um,
Tonya, you had just mentioned, yet weare still relatively sort of soft about
(13:56):
what just reflect you learn to reflect.
Like, I don't have the vocabularyto say now that you are a, you know,
graduate of this or now that you are, youshould be able to do it at this level.
Like your neural network should bethis thick and this wide, or, or
at least have, you know, have been,have been able to process things
(14:17):
that are off the sixth degree, right?
We are not really evenputting enough effort into it.
To really do it aside, aside from aprogram like yours, where you've dedicated
an entire program where people canactually have a degree on in Liberal
Arts, where you are, you know, likereally thinking through like, well,
(14:41):
the curriculum is how to think is theability to develop purpose and need.
And by the way, developing purpose andmeaning to me is what's really beautiful
about what you, you all had talked about,because it's not just about getting that
paycheck either, because, you know, thereare, there's getting a paycheck in a way
that is fulfilling and there's a paycheck.
(15:01):
That's just a paycheck.
Um, you know, um, and, and, and itdoesn't feel right to just get our
students to get a paycheck withoutgiving them that fulfillment.
And I think that's one of thebenefits of a college education.
So you should transition from having ajob to having a career where you have
(15:23):
a vested interest in the processes andthe outcomes other than the paycheck.
And one thing I think that we're kind ofskirting around is the idea of innovation.
So critical thinking is what allowsus to innovate, but it is like you
(15:44):
mentioned before, reflection is notbuilt into any curriculum, right?
And for a lot of us who teach a lot ofus teach the way that we were taught
and we weren't taught to ask a student,'You just learned a lot of chemistry and
you're supposed to be in a biology class.
(16:05):
How do you feel about that?' We'rewe're not We're not taught to do that.
So it requires us to be innovativeourselves in order to train our
students to be innovative, right?
Because that's where innovationcomes from reflection.
And you're right, Jeff.
(16:26):
It's a hugely important skill that weshould just as human beings be able to
better, um, like delineate the stages.
Stage zero reflector, yourstage two reflector, right?
And if you do a X, Y, and Z,you'll can level up, right?
Your reflection abilityis really important.
(16:47):
I mean, maybe it doesn't even haveto be so sequential, you know,
but I think that for us not havingeven the sophistication level to have.
You know, a discussion wherewe can just say, Oh, okay.
You know, I see that you are, youknow, you're able to reflect in
this way, which is very powerful.
(17:08):
And when you combine it with this otherkinds of reflection, this is where
a really confident, you know, likea really cool, like you are, you're
going to be really good at the, the,you know, creative, you know, you,
you'd be a great screenwriter and, and,and, and, and, and, and, uh, you know,
and a playwright, et cetera, right.
Could I just say, um, I think theother thing too, that the Liberal Arts
(17:29):
provides is imagination and possibilityof other ways of looking at the world.
I mean, I just have to sort of bringup a topic that I've just listened to.
Um, a book called 'The Sea People - ThePuzzle of Polynesia.' And one of the
things that blew, my mind is the way,um, these peoples were able to navigate
(17:55):
the sea, not with a single chart, lookingat stars, looking at swells, looking at
birds and, you know, and it's, you know,and they were mentioning this, um, 18th
century priest who sailed with cook namedto Paya and he did a map and they're
like, it doesn't look like any map.
(18:17):
That is actually readable because heused the positionality of a Polynesian
where they were sort of jumping fromisland to island and using sort of
different modalities of thinking,right, in order to be able to navigate.
And I love that as a metaphor forthe Liberal Arts too, right, about
(18:40):
both us as how could we spark thatimagination and what could come up.
As a result of it, right?
I mean, it's just adifferent way of viewing.
It's a different way of seeing the world.
It's a different, it'sa different empathy.
It's a different feeling, youknow, and I just want to, I mean,
again, any opportunity now Ihave to bring up the Polynesians.
(19:02):
I'll take it, but I do think itworks really well as a metaphor here.
I think that's so beautiful.
And by the way, this idea of empathy.
Making meaning, you know,finding passion, et cetera.
It, you know, to me is, you know, it'sone of those, um, one of those things
(19:24):
that humans are privileged to have, youknow, like we, we have a lot of choices.
In life and we get to develop passionabout something and we get to have
that sense of fulfillment by if we canidentify it, we can go for it and it
would be the best feeling one can have.
(19:47):
And it also includes things like, youknow, doing things for your family,
doing things for your loved ones,doing things for your friends, right?
These things don't give you apaycheck necessarily in and of itself,
in most cases, at least, right?
(20:08):
But they are things that we do, and ashumans, we actually, that's a privilege.
That's something that we, we get todo, and it's something that, um, you
know, um, uh, It doesn't matter whetheryou're, you're, it, it, it, it, there's
no, um, uh, stock market for it.
(20:29):
There's no, um, corporate tax on this.
There's no, there's, there,there's no, that you do it for
just a pure joy of doing so.
And I feel like that.
In education, um, it's, it's importantfor us to think about that being like,
(20:51):
that can't not be one of the goals,you know, for our students to, to, to
be there, to be at that, to have thatsort of, to be able to enjoy that.
Um, and I, I do think that it really, tome, I, I, I have, I have so much respect
for, for all the fields, by the way.
So I, I mean, it, it almost soundedlike the, I'm like beating up on,
(21:13):
Hey, if you want to be a nurse.
Don't do that because that's just a skill.
No, actually, I think that people thatdo it is because they have that passion,
you know, but it would be terrible inmy mind for someone that don't have that
passion and then they do it because theyheard it's a good way to get a paycheck.
And then when they do that job.
(21:35):
They do do get that paycheck and, andI'm sure you can train them to the
level where they can do it, but theyare just going to be unfulfilled.
They're doing this where they reallywant, they really want to be as an
athlete or to be a painter or to bea writer or to be something else,
to be a communicator, you know?
Yeah, no.
(21:56):
And I mean, you have people like AbrahamVerghese, who, um, you know, doctor.
And an incredible writer, you know, firstbook about his experience working with
AIDS patients in Tennessee in the 1990s.
And then he writes some incrediblenovels where he could straddle that line
between, you know, science, you know,hardcore science as a very, I mean, well
(22:24):
known and quite sort of renowned doctor.
And at the same time,An incredible writer.
And those are, you know, multipleidentities that our students already have.
And it's a question of, again, how dothey, I think, establish new ones and keep
adding to them and that they don't haveto be defined by discipline, right, right.
(22:48):
So that, you know, There there'smultiple ways of being that you
can be the same body, right?
You know, I usually, you know, sayto students, you can be interested
in science and in art and in history.
It doesn't have to be one or the other.
It's possible to have multiple interests.
You know, you talked aboutLeonardo da Vinci earlier.
(23:10):
to be a painter who's interested inanatomy and physics and engineering,
and it's possible to be that person.
You know, when we, when I conceivedof this project, part of, of what I
was pushing back against is, you know,students come into the college and they
have to pick a major and Liberal Artsbecame the place that you went if you
(23:32):
weren't sure what you wanted to be.
And that was somehow a bad thing.
All right.
So.
People who want to be nurses orengineers or any of the really
well defined programs, fine.
You're not quite sureyet what you want to do.
Okay, go into Liberal Arts andfigure it out, and then you'll
switch into something else.
(23:53):
And we wanted to position theLiberal Arts major as an end in
itself, as a good thing to be.
And we, we, you know, goingback to the template, this idea
of helping students recognize.
The value that Liberal ArtsUm, has in and of itself.
Yes, it gives you all these skills.
(24:14):
But yes, just being a creative,curious person is a great thing
to be and just as great as being anurse or an engineer or or a doctor.
And, um, and also just even to sayto students studying the Liberal
Arts open so many pathways to you.
You can still be creative.
(24:34):
the engineer or the nurse or, or thedoctor having studied Liberal Arts.
But think about how much better youwill be because you, you understand
more about people and cultures.
If you're a healthcare professionalwho understands, you know,
more about different culturalbackgrounds of your patients, just
(24:54):
how much better the standard ofcare you could, you could offer.
So we really wanted to make surethat students realize the value.
Of the Liberal Arts for them, whateverpathway they eventually chose.
I love that, Dionne.
Um, by the way, uh, Demetri, youknow who else also is a fantastic
(25:17):
writer, but also a physician?
It's, um, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Who wrote Sherlock Holmes.
True.
You are still watching movieson Sherlock Holmes today.
And that was written inthe Late 1800s, right?
I think it's late 1800s.
It was written.
And so, so, you know, this is, these are,in other words, these are not new ideas.
(25:42):
We have amazing people in our historythat we can look back in and say, wow,
you know, these things happened, right?
But, but how are we so, um, youknow, how are we, how are we missing
these really important pieces?
And I'm so glad that you You know,beyond your program have taking a,
(26:07):
uh, taking this so seriously andgoing, hold on a minute, you know,
we've got to, we've got to make,make this a possibility for people.
Now I want to maybe, um, um, we'll,we'll wrap up in a minute, but I
wanted to talk a little bit about.
What you see, and this is something that,you know, you might have some anecdotes
(26:30):
or you might have some students asexamples, or just, you know, in general,
your students going through this program,they're creating these portfolios,
they're doing these reflections.
Can you give us some sort of likeexample, some colors on what are
the results like has have there havestudents, you know, gone through this
(26:51):
and going, wow, this changed my life or.
Wow.
And now I do this and that, um, like,can you give us a little bit of that?
So that people like, I think thatthere's still this like illusion
that, well, if you're starting tobecome a mechanic, you can fix it.
Um, okay.
Like we got that.
(27:12):
Um, if you studied.
Liberal Arts.
What are the results?
And I'm talking about both thetangible, like, Hey, maybe, you know,
what jobs or what fields can theygo into, but also like, what else
does it, does it come with that?
We just, that, that correspondto what we've been talking about,
I think for me, um, I said before thatI teach first year seminar and first
(27:37):
year seminar is where we introduce theLiberal Arts Corey portfolio to students.
And for me, yeah.
What I love is students begin tosee themselves as whole individuals.
They begin to understand thatWhen I'm exploring my major, I'm
(28:02):
exploring the world and I'm exploringmyself so that they begin to make
internal and external connections.
So then, you know, the reflectis, of course, prompted by
reflection, but the imagination in.
The innovation I cansee sparked in students.
(28:26):
So, when we talk about things thatstudents don't expect to hear about,
because in my case, they're sciencemajors, it's like a flower opening up.
It's a really beautiful process.
You feeling okay, Tonya?
Feel free to take your time.
You choked up there, really, thinkingabout your students, I think.
(28:50):
For those who are listening, Tonya, Ithink, choked on a little bit of water,
so she'll be back with us in a minute.
But I could see how it's getting.
You know, I can also, yeah, youknow, I think about the student
last year who was the representativefor our graduating class.
And.
(29:11):
That was one of those experiences asan educator where you really say, Yes,
this is this is what we're striving for.
She was a student who graduatedfrom our Liberal Arts, social
science and humanities major,and she was transferring.
to become a biology major.
(29:31):
And I was just like, wow, thisis exactly what I want to happen.
I want a student to realize thatno pathway is closed off to them
because they chose the Liberal Arts.
And so she was going from a nonSTEM major into a STEM major.
And she talked about, she wasinterviewed by, um, the university,
(29:55):
um, student life office.
And she talked about, how valuableshe found the Liberal Arts program at
LaGuardia in exposing her to differentideas across different disciplines.
And I said, Yes, thisis my perfect graduate.
This is what I hope to accomplishthat here we have a student who
(30:15):
could without any prompting from us.
I had no idea she was doing thisinterview until I saw it published that
she could talk so fluently about howexposure to multiple ideas in multiple
courses across the Liberal Arts majorwas really valuable to her development.
And she could then transition from thismajor into being a biologist because
(30:39):
having experienced all the different,um, disciplines that we introduced her
to, she could settle on, okay, yes, thisis the one that inspires my passions
and makes me want to, to learn more.
And I hope she never loses that inwhatever it is that she eventually,
you know, lands on in her career.
(31:02):
Um, I could also tell the story, becauseI was trying to think, because I have
not taught, um, well, upper level, 200level courses in a while, LaGuardia.
But I actually had, um, a scenario thispast, um, summer where I had a student
who was finishing her associate's degree.
At, um, at LaGuardia indeaf, in, um, deaf studies.
(31:26):
It's a Liberal Arts concentration, right?
So it's a Liberal Arts degree.
And, you know, she's like, you know,I need to finish, I'm going to, you
know, finish the degree to Oklahoma.
So she took it as an opportunity to, youknow, come here and we started talking.
And like I said to her, well, what are yougoing to do when you go back to Oklahoma?
(31:46):
She's like, well, Iwant to be a translator.
I'm like, yeah, is that it?
You know, she was telling me the storyhow every Sunday she was going to a, um,
uh, a church with, um, deaf congregants.
And I was like, let me tell you, girl, ifyou were going to write a master's thesis,
(32:07):
A sociological thesis on religion and thedeaf community, I would read it, right?
And she's like, I'dnever thought about that.
I mean, you know, it opens uppossibilities instead of saying, okay,
I'm going to be a deaf translator.
Well, how could you engage withthe world and understand it in
ways that you never thought?
possible.
(32:27):
And that's just one small example,but I mean, you know, she wrote me a
lovely letter saying, Oh, thank you somuch that, you know, class that she was
literally taking in her last semester,all of a sudden opened her eyes.
Like, I wish I knew thisat the very beginning.
And yet I hope again, there was thatlittle sort of, as we say, imagination
and possibility that the LiberalArts provides in that one student.
(32:55):
That is so lovely.
Um, Well, I, I feel like that's, first ofall, let's try to invite some of these.
Students and graduates so that we canhave more conversations with them as well.
So we're gonna, we're gonna,we're gonna talk to them too.
And we're gonna, you know, sothe people can, can see from your
(33:16):
perspective, how you think about it,but also from their perspective, right?
Um, I think that would be a great,um, some great follow up conversations
that we should, we must have.
Uh, but I also want to justsay how grateful I am that you
three are here to share these.
Different perspectives and how gratefulagain and thankful that I am to have
(33:40):
the opportunity to work with you alland seeing what you're able to, to
accomplish, uh, with your students.
These are like really very seriouslyinspiring highlights and, and I, um, I
am, uh, I am just so, um, amazed by thecontinuous drive to continue to do that.
(34:03):
And I think it's because yourinstitution has that Liberal Arts,
um, foundation as driven by that.
I think you had mentioned earlierfrom Gail Mello, who my met years ago.
And she's amazing.
She has created thisamazing culture there.
And, and you all think in this way.
(34:23):
Um, and I, I just, I just love that,um, for folks who don't know, um enough
about LaGuardia Community College,please Google them, check them out.
Um, they, this is what a wonderfulinstitution, um, and for folks who,
um, who, um, are not, who, who maynot have been exposed to what Liberal
(34:48):
Arts education can do for you.
Um, check out that paper, you will see,you know, I think you'll be inspired
just like I did, even though it's a,it's really written as an academic paper.
I think I thought it was, um, youknow, suitable for anyone to read.
Um, uh, you may not, you know, needto read every little piece of it.
(35:09):
It's a long paper, but there will beenough that you'll get a lot out of it.
Um, and, and this stuff that, you know,Dionne and Tonya, and Demetri are sharing.
They're not just, you know, thingsthat are, you know, just nice
to have, and they just happento do it for fun, for no reason.
You know, this is backed by lots ofresearch, lots of efforts, and huge
(35:33):
amount of commitment by dedicatedpeople who have found their meanings.
The life and have, have dedicatedthat purpose to building these so that
other people can enjoy it as well.
And so I hope that you all go in andcheck this out and congratulations
again for all your successes.
I, and I hope that we get to talkagain soon and we'll get some of
your students and graduate to come onthis and then we'll have you guys to
(35:56):
come on this afterwards as well, andthen, and then see how they all go.
Okay.
We'll, we'll keep, keep in touch.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having us.
Here's a preview of what's coming up nextin part two of my conversation with Tonya
Hendrix, Demetri  Kapetanakos, and DionneMiller from LaGuardia Community College.
(36:17):
So being able to question and reallychoose what is valuable and what
matters is something that Bucknell hasreally, has allowed me to practice.
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